Aftermath 3 - Hang On, Dreams
by Vol lady
Summary: The last of the "Aftermath Trilogy," centering on Heath and Jarrod, and a future.


_For the eyes of sweet Virginia were headlights on the road_

 _A beacon for the weary heart that hardens as it goes_

 _In the eyes of sweet Virginia, the fields of Kansas lay_

 _And stretched to California, a hope for better days_

 _Hang on dreams, you ain't seen it all…_

 _John Stewart_

Aftermath 3 - Hang On, Dreams

It had been a year – an entire year. Time had done its healing, for the most part. Jarrod was back to work, busy in both his San Francisco and Stockton offices, and as winter turned back into spring, he was more at ease with everything. His smile had returned so quietly that no one could pin a date on when it first appeared, and no one could say that on such and such a date, life became more like normal for the family. It just slowly happened.

But no one had lost track of the anniversary date that marked a year since Jarrod married Beth, rapidly followed by the date that marked a year since her death and his immediate fall into murderous rage. Nobody wanted to face those dates, so nobody mentioned them, but everyone felt them hanging over their heads.

Then at breakfast, on the morning that was only two days before those dates began to fall in on them, Jarrod announced, without looking up from this food, that he would be going to San Francisco for two weeks and would be leaving that afternoon.

Everyone else looked at one another. It had never occurred to them that he would not be here at home when those days hit. They knew there was no chance he had forgotten what was coming up. No one was sure what to say.

Victoria finally said it plainly. "I think you should be here with us for the next few weeks, Jarrod."

Jarrod looked up, saw their faces, and said, "I'm all right. There are things I have to attend to in San Francisco, and they can't be put off."

"What are they?" Victoria asked.

That ugly darkness that no one liked came over his eyes. "Is this going to be a cross-examination?"

Victoria glared angrily at him.

Nick said, "We're only concerned about you being alone. Everybody knows what anniversaries are coming up for you and what memories are likely to come back on you. You shouldn't be by yourself."

Jarrod dropped his fork and sighed, staring down at his plate. "I need to go. It's as simple as that. Forget what anniversaries are coming up. I have business to attend to."

Victoria chose her words carefully and kept her temper to herself. "Is there any reason you can't put these things off? Maybe you don't need to be with us these next couple weeks, but maybe we need to be with you."

Cut down to size, Jarrod sighed, but still did not look up. "You're right. I apologize. I'll wire Angie to send what I need by train and plan to stay here instead of going to San Francisco."

His family took to looking at each other again, until Victoria went back to eating.

XXXXXX

After breakfast, Jarrod headed to town to send the wire to Angie, his secretary in San Francisco, but he made a slight detour to visit Beth's grave. Alone there in the clearing in the woods, he tethered his horse to a tree branch and took his hat off. He looked down at where she lay.

"It's me again," he said, trying to sound more at ease than he felt. "This sure isn't the way either one of us planned our first anniversary to be. I thought you'd be about to have our first child, the house up at Isla del Cielo would be half finished, we'd be planning a big party and – "

He choked on the words and couldn't keep talking out loud, but his thoughts continued and he let them. _They still don't trust me, Beth. I've done everything I can to show them I'm all right and I'm not going to go on some monstrous rampage, but they don't trust me anymore. I see it in their faces every time I go off to San Francisco or Sacramento, but this time they won't even let me go. And it makes me so angry that I start to flare up again and that just proves that they're right, they have reason not to trust me._

He sighed a heavy sigh and sat down in the grass. He didn't know how long he sat there before he started thinking again and noticed that the flowers Audra planted around Beth's grave were beginning to blossom. Jarrod picked one of them. It made him remember – a flower was why Beth was dead. She had bent over to pick a flower and took the bullet meant for him.

He crushed it in his hand and threw it aside. Tears came flowing out – grieving tears, angry tears, guilty tears. _I miss you so much but if you'd never met me you'd still be alive. I'd be the one lying in this grave, not you. I can't stop thinking that. The thought's been creeping up on me ever since spring came on and the flowers began to bloom. And Beth, I get so angry and my family sees it in me and I watch the trust in their eyes just disappear. I'm going round and round in circles and always end up back with this terrible anger and guilt. Beth, I'm so sorry. I've let you down in every single way there is._

He heard a rider coming, so he wiped the tears from his face, put his hat back on, and stood up. He thought it was going to be Nick, but it was Heath, and he was leading Jingo. Confused, Jarrod looked to where he'd tethered his horse, and he was gone.

"Good to see you alive and well," Heath said. "I had to come in for some wirecutters I left behind and I found Jingo heading down the road toward home. Got worried he'd thrown you or something, but thought maybe I'd check here before heading into town."

Heath handed Jingo's lead over to his older brother. "No, looks like I just didn't tether him properly and he wandered off on me," Jarrod said and mounted up.

"I don't mean to make you leave," Heath said.

Jarrod shook his head. "I've been here longer than I thought. I need to get to town."

They turned and rode off together, Heath heading in the same direction.

Jarrod grew a little suspicious. "You gonna escort me into town?"

"Yeah, thought I might," Heath said, his casual honesty having the effect he wanted. Jarrod was disarmed before he could fire a shot.

Jarrod just said, "I'm really not going to run off to San Francisco."

"Oh, I know that," Heath said. "If you did, you've have to stay there forever, or come home and face Mother's temper, which I'm sure would be considerable."

"No doubt," Jarrod agreed.

They rode in silence for a little while before Heath said, "You know, big brother, I got this dream."

"Dream?" Jarrod asked.

"Yeah. Used to think about such things but put the ideas away. Figured life just happened as it happened, but lately I been thinking about what I want out of life, and I been pulling some of those dreams out. Most of them are just pipe dreams, but there's one or two I think might be the real thing."

 _Dreams,_ Jarrod thought. _I don't want to dream anymore. I buried them all back there with Beth. I don't want to conjure up any more of my own._ But he said, "So what kind of dream are we talking about?"

"I want to go to New York City."

Jarrod had to laugh. Something like that was the last thing he expected to hear from Heath. "You've never been east of Texas, have you?" he laughed.

"That's why I want to go," Heath said. "I hear it's like San Francisco if you blew it up in size a hundred times, and it's all on a big island. I want to see something like that."

Jarrod chuckled again. "You might be disappointed. A lot of people crammed onto one island makes for some mighty big problems."

"You been there?"

"Years ago. Got robbed twice, propositioned about ten times, and turned around the wrong way so many times I had to ask directions until I was blue in the face."

"But I bet, when you think about it, you wish you could have another time like that, don't you?"

Jarrod had to concede it. He nodded. "Maybe it is someplace every man ought to go at least once in his life."

"Got me another dream," Heath said.

Jarrod chuckled yet again. "What's this one?"

"I wanna build me a stable of racing horses, thoroughbreds."

"Thoroughbreds?" Jarrod whistled.

"Yep," Heath said. "I wanna breed 'em, and sell 'em, and then go watch them race and win every race they're in while I bet on them and win big."

Jarrod had to laugh even more. "Little brother, you do dream big."

"Well, you only go round once, and you can only go so long putting your dreaming aside while you herd cattle and muck stalls. Didn't you do some dreaming sometime?"

Jarrod immediately thought of all the dreams that had shattered lately, but then he came around to another dream that actually made him smile. "I'm sitting on one. When I was a kid, I used to dream that someday I'd have a horse named Jingo."

Heath's turn to chuckle. "I suppose becoming a lawyer was a dream you made come true."

"Well, funny thing about that. It was Mother's dream for me, not mine, not until I went off to the war. I saw so many things wrong during the war, her dream shifted into mine. I wanted to make more things right."

"And you have," Heath said. "I want to make my dreams come true someday soon. Been keeping them hanging on too long."

"Hanging on?"

"You know – you keep a dream in your back pocket when the going gets rough and you tell it, just hang on, dream. You gotta step aside for a while, but hang on. I'll get back to you."

Jarrod smiled, genuinely. Sometimes he forgot that Heath was nearly ten years younger than he was. Life had been rocky for him before he came to be a Barkley. He probably had to put all his dreams in his back pocket, so he dreamed them now, dreams like Jarrod remembered having when he was considerably younger.

"Oh, yeah," Heath went on. "Pulled mine out of the back pocket lately." He looked over at his brother. "'Bout time you did some of that, don't you think?"

Jarrod's smile faded. "It's tough when your dreams come true and then you lose them, Heath," he said.

"Sometimes old dreams have a way of hanging on without you telling them to. Even the ones you think came true and then you lost. They have a tendency to crawl back into your back pocket, even when you think they're gone."

Jarrod let that roll around in his mind for a bit. He knew there was no way he could pull out that old dream of a wife and family, but maybe there was an old dream or two he could revive, if he really thought about it, or maybe just let it happen. But – "I'm not sure I'm ready for dreams again yet, Heath."

"Well, just tell' em to hang on, 'cause you got a lot of life ahead. You ain't seen it all."

Heath suddenly stopped and began to turn his horse.

"Not gonna escort me into town after all?" Jarrod asked.

Heath shook his head. "I think you can get along without me. See you at supper?"

Jarrod nodded and before Heath could take off, he said, "Just a second."

Heath waited.

"What do you say, after dinner, we talk about planning a trip to New York, just you and me? You're gonna need a big brother to keep you out of trouble, you know."

Heath broke into a big grin. "Now, there's us a dream," he said and took off.

Jarrod nodded again and watched Heath go riding off toward where he was supposed to be in the first place. He thought more about Heath and his dreams. They made him smile. He thought about Heath's advice. It was solid.

 _Hang on, dreams,_ he thought, about his own that might still be in that back pocket. _I'll get back to you._

THE END


End file.
